Life is good

As many of you know, I rather like heavy music. In addition to being an avid listener, I am also a musician and take a number of influences in crafting my own music. One of the key musicians that has inspired me has been Chuck Billy from Testament – his combination of melodic singing ability and deep growl offered the perfect inspiration for my own music. When I started out taking singing seriously, I took singing lessons and at my first lesson brought along a cassette tape with Chuck singing, and said to my singing teacher “help me sing like that”.

I saw Testament a few times but never really got a chance to meet Chuck. He was always around after gigs, but I had to rush off or someone was picking me up. Then, he was diagnosed with germ cell seminoma, a form of Cancer and underwent chemotherapy which knocked him out of action. The metal world was worried about him and his future, but thankfully he made a full recovery. He continued to work with Testament and recently co-formed the Dublin Death Patrol, a band comprising of various thrash legends, most notably Steve Souza from Exodus, another one of my metal heroes.

Well, last night I went to see them play and finally one of life’s ambitions was satisfied:

With the prior history with Chuck, I was worried I would never have got a chance to meet him. Happy is an understatement.

I’m really on the Progressive side of Metal music (Dream Theater, Tool, Muse and the like) but do enjoy and respect Testament a lot.

It’s really great to know Chuck recovered so well!

BTW, Jone. Next time you trip to Porto Alegre I’ll be your guide to the underground scene there.

http://www.danieltiecher.com/ Daniel Anderson Tiecher

Er… Didn’t proof read what I’ve written and made a dumb mistake. Jono, not Jone.

Cheers

Luke

AWESOME!
Testament is a great thrash band, a bit before my time (Im 18) but I really dig old school Thrash, Testament + Metallica top that list.
Good to see Metalheads + Open Source, glad Im not the only one.

http://decafbad.net CraigM

That is totally awesome! Congratulations! Gotta say I love both Exodus and Testament, and meeting both of these guys would be a real thrill.

raptros-v76

i second luke’s comment about metalheads + open source.

the_0ne

Kick ass man, that’s awesome. Isn’t Chuck Billy like 8 foot 2 or something like that? I always remember his Trial By Fire video where it looked like he had to stoop so that his head would get in the same shot as the rest of the band. lol